Lady Delphina raises an eyebrow sceptically. “We can start.”
“Who is she?” I ask, indicating the woman behind her.
“This is Margaret, my special secretary.” Then she pauses, observing me. “Get up and turn round, slowly.”
“Why?”
My mother-in-law gives me a grim look. “Because I say so, and that’s more than enough. I want to see you better.”
These aristocrats are so full of themselves that they always forget to say the magic word ‘please’.
I get up reluctantly and lazily start turning round.
“Will this take much longer?” asks Lady Bedlam sarcastically.
“I’m turning round slowly,” I explain. She told me to!
“That’s too slow,” she snorts.
“You did not specify how slowly,” I say, continuing with my pirouette.
“That’s enough, sit down. Margaret, write: everything needs to be redone. Hair, hands, face, clothing, posture. Everything.” I sit down, leaning lazily against the armrest. When Delphina turns to look at me, her eyes nearly pop out of her head.
“That’s Queen Victoria’s armchair!”
“Well, she wasn’t sitting in it when I got here.”
Lady Bedlam ignores me again and turns towards Margaret. “Keep writing: ill mannered and lacking composure.”
“So many compliments at once,” I comment ironically.
“What about your family? Mother, father, grandparents?”
“My mother’s name is Carly, she teaches yoga and works in a holistic massage centre. My father’s name is Vance, and he works as adjfor an independent rock radio station. I never met my father’s parents. They died when he was very little, but I know that my grandfather was a Scot.”
“Scot… tish?” My mother-in-law almost chokes.
“Yeah, my father’s surname is MacPears, but the clerk at thegrogot it wrong and registered me as Jemma Pears. Pears, she forgot ‘Mac’.”
“Thank goodness! For once, the mistake of a public servant was providential! If you don’t go shouting it from the rooftops, we can avoid mentioning your father’s origins,” the witch sighs.
“My grandfather was from Edinburgh,” I continue, regardless, but she ignores me.
“Margaret, write: no relevant connection on father’s side,” then she looks at me again. “Mother’s side?”
“My grandmother has recently died, her name was Catriona Straw.”
“I’ve already heard this name.”
“Her family manufactured weapons. Mostly rifles—”
Lady Bedlam touches her head in discontent. “Prince Charles is a pacifist, an environmentalist and an animal activist. How in the name of God are we supposed to explain that my son married the granddaughter of some warmongers?”
I can’t help but tease her a bit: “I cannot confirm that among my relatives there are no war criminals.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. What about your studies? What colleges did you attend?”
“No college, my parents preferred public schools so that I could go home in the evening and stay with the family.”
